Queen's University Belfast votes to increase tuition fees and accommodation prices
Eoin McCaul
On Tuesday December 13, students gathered outside Queen’s University Belfast’s Lanyon building to protest a vote being held by the Senate, the governing body of the University, on the matter of raising both tuition fees and accommodation prices. Despite protests, however, the Senate passed the motion.
This move comes during a cost-of-living crisis when students have seen their standards of living drop, and which QUB declared to be a “critical incident” earlier this year. The University will be making one-off support payments of £150 to most students in January 2023, with a £400 one-off payment going to students in lower-income brackets.
In a statement the University said:
“Every household will be fully aware of the impact of huge increases on electricity, gas and oil and the university, as a provider of accommodation, regrettably has had to implement a mild rent increase to some of our accommodation provision to ensure costs and overheads are covered for the 2023-24 academic year.”
Research conducted by the National Union of Students (NUS) has revealed that after paying rent and bills, a third of students have a total of £50 left to budget on every month.
In a video released on QUB’s social media accounts yesterday, Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Greer stated that the University makes “a multi-billion-pound contribution to the UK economy”, with new analysis from London Economics estimating the figure at around £3 billion in 2020-21, the BBC has reported.
Professor Ian Greer is entitled to a wage of £312,000 per year, over double that of the UK prime minister.
QUB student Meghan Kane spoke out about her experience in student halls at Tuesday’s protest:
“I spend £5,000 on Queen’s accommodation every year, yet we get about three hours of heating a day. I woke up from a nap the other day and my lips were turning blue. Students are freezing to death in their own accommodation that they are paying out their asses for.”
Students’ Union representatives were also in attendance at the event. SU Campaigns & Engagement officer Aidan Moran and SU Postgraduate officer Jamie-Lukas Campbell spoke at the protest, while SU President Emma Murphy represented the student body in the Senate.
Campaigns & Engagement officer Aidan Moran said:
“We need to make sure that the people in there know that we’re ready to take radical political action, which is why we’ll be calling for a referendum on having a rent strike against them. We need to have a rent strike to hit them financially.
They don’t care about students, they don’t care about staff, they don’t see us as people – we are just numbers on a page, a goldmine to be depleted.”
Postgraduate officer Jamie-Lukas Campbell spoke against the lack of funding provided for Postgraduate students:
“Postgrads have not seen any funding increase in years and yet we’re talking about raising the cost-of-living. Our experience is never considered, while we’re out here we need to consider what we’re doing for the future of our community. Postgrads create some of the research that is literally changing the world.”
Postgraduate students in Northern Ireland can currently receive a maximum loan of £6,500 for tuition fees through Student Finance NI, with no additional support available for living costs. This is the least support offered in the UK – England offers up to £11,836 and Wales offers up to £18,430 for both tuition fees and living costs.
Dominic Bryan of the UCU was also present at Tuesday’s protest to show the Union’s support for the student movement. The UCU are currently in an industrial dispute with university management nationwide, with strike action being called earlier this year over falling real incomes and the increasing casualisation of contracts.
He stated, “All of this is linked as I’m sure many of you have worked out.” Bryan praised the support that students have given to the UCU throughout their dispute and emphasised how the concerns of both students and staff are part of the same struggle:
“Isn’t it bizarre that this University now has bits on its website to deal with the economic recession, telling students and staff what they can do to try and get themselves out of the financial trouble that we’re apparently in, as if it’s something that we did.”
Head of QUB SDLP Will Poland also spoke at the protest:
“Why in this time when students are struggling with rising bills, where we’re already worried about being able to afford the general cost of living, when these are having a massive effect on our general mental health and fiscal well-being, are the university considering such a move as to raise our accommodation fees and tuition fees?”
Other parties in attendance were Ógra Shinn Féin and People Before Profit. Chris Ceebee of PBP said:
“I think we can all agree that the very idea that a rent increase or tuition fee rise can be implemented is nothing short of a financial attack on the most vulnerable students.”
Official confirmation of when fees will be raised and by what percentage is yet to be released by the University.
Eoin McCaul is head comment editor at The Scoop and a Politics, Philosophy and Economics student at Queen’s University Belfast